The smart guy
by Bonasena
Summary: last night I was watching episode 25.6 – the one with the schoolgirl Cindy Chang. It gave me an idea Eric's background story.


**Post s5e6 – the smart guy**

 **Note: last night I was watching episode 25.6 – the one with the schoolgirl Cindy Chang. It gave me an idea Eric's background story. this is an edited version. I got an incredible review that I truly appreciate from a guest. I truly hope you see this. THANK YOU SO MUCH, guest, for your comment.**

 **I posted your comment here because I truly appreciate it. and to answer your comment: yes I like very much to get feedback. So thank you for that.**

 **the nicest review** I **have ever gotten:**

 _I like the story and the look into Eric's background is interesting, and certainly something to think about._  
 _If Hetty_ hand picked _these people, where did she find_ Eric...interesting.  
 _your grammar, phrasing and sentence structure are very good._  
 _Better than mine, actually. punctuation is not my thing._

 _Everything was still perfectly understandable and none of this affected the enjoyment of the story._

 _like I said earlier, your sentence structure and phrasing is very good._  
 _It is often obvious when it is a_ non native _English writer, but not in this case, I could not tell._  
 _This is more like typical things that a native English speaker would do, which is a big_ compliment _by the way._

 ** _hope you all enjoy my story_**

After Cindy and her parents left the boadsheet Eric stayed for a little before he went back to the ops center. He went straight to ops and started to work on the paperwork.

At around 8 pm when Hetty and Nell were getting ready to leave the office for the day Nell notice there were still light in the ops center.

"is someone still in ops? I thought Eric left earlier." Nell said.

"I think you should go talk to him," Hetty says before leaving the office. Nell walks up the stairs and into the ops center where Eric I still sitting in his chair. It doesn't seem like he has done a lot of paperwork.

"Hey, you alright?" she asks after have been watching him just sitting there stirring for a few minutes. He turns around startled. He didn't hear her come in.

"Oh hey. Yeah, I'm fine. Just finishing up."  
Nell looks up at the big screen. There is an old picture of a young teenage boy with blonde hair. He is happy and smiling.

"who is that guy? He was not part of our case."

"no." eric turns his focus back to his computer that he was stirring at earlier.

"who is that boy?" she asks walking over to him and places her hands on his shoulders.

"a ghost. He doesn't exist anymore.

"he is dead?" she asks.

"no."

Nell takes a seat next to him.

"what is going on why are you looking at this now?"

"when I was 15 I did something that put a lot of people in danger for my own selfish reason."  
Nell look confused at him.

"just like Cindy… I used my skills and I ended up putting a lot of people in harm's way. The only reason I didn't end up in federal prison was because of Hetty. She told me to use my skills for good. She made deal with me to come work here for her after school."

"Hetty recruited you when you were 15?" Nell sounds impressed.

"don't be impressed. I hacked the navy personnel database to locate my mom who was deployed overseas. I put a lot of people in serious danger for my own selfish reason."

"You hacked the Pentagon?"

Eric nods a little embarrassed.

"I was being young and stupid. I was bullied in school and some guys said ki couldn't hack the school's grade system. So I did. A few days later they asked me if I could hack a bank. So I did. I used my skills to commit crimes."

"they used you."

"it ended when I got caught. A girl whose father was working at the Pentagon wanted me to hack his personal computer. I didn't want to but she said she was gonna go to prom with me if I did." Nell smiles a little. Eric gives her a look that clearly tells her it is not funny.

"come on you were a teenager."

"I was a criminal. I committed crimes. I rubbed banks, carjacking, hacked the Pentagon. I helped them steal things from stores by fixing the credit card system." Eric turns his focus back to the picture on the screen. "one day, I was home alone after school and it knocked on the door. That was Hetty. She told me she had been watching me and she knew what I had done. The night before I had hacked the Pentagon to locate my mom overseas. She was the only person I could talk to about it."

"Eric… I have seen what you are capable of. You didn't just get caught by Hetty. You wanted to get caught didn't you?"

Eric looks down at his hands embarrassed that Nell can see right through him like that.

"there's never anyone before who has figured that out."

"that is because of not everyone else knows you the way I do and know what you are capable of. You broke the internet for Christ sake."

Eric smiles a little proud of himself.

"I could have ended up like Cindy… being responsible for peoples death." Eric says.

"but you didn't."

"I want to help Cindy. She has skills. I want to help her in the right direction so she can use her skills for good."

"you are a really good guy, Beale," Nell says with her hands firmly placed on his shoulders. He smiles. Shen stands up.

"come on Beale. Ill buy us some dinner." She grabs his backpack and walks towards the door. He shots down the screens and follows her.


End file.
